"
Mary's bright, involuntary smile transformed her. Ashe sat down beside
her, and they were soon deep in all sorts of gossip--relations,
acquaintance, politics, and what not. All Mary's stiffness disappeared.
She became the elegant, agreeable woman, of whom dinner-parties were
glad. Ashe plunged into the pleasant malice of her talk, which ranged
through the good and evil fortunes--mostly the latter--of half his
acquaintance; discussed the debts, the love-affairs, and the follies of
his political colleagues or Parliamentary foes; how the Foreign
Secretary had been getting on at Balmoral--how so-and-so had been ruined
at the Derby and restored to sanity and solvency by the Oaks--how Lady
Parham, at Hatfield, had been made to know her place by the French
Ambassador--and the like; passing thereby a charming half-hour.
Meanwhile Kitty, Margaret French, and Sir Richard kept up intermittent
remarks, pausing at every other phrase to gather the crumbs that fell
from the table of the other two.
Kitty was very weary, and a dead weight had fallen on her spirits. If
Sir Richard had thought her bad form ten minutes before, his unspoken
mind now declared her stupid.
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